Samsung’s Neon Unveiled – It’s an AI Humanoid Chatbot with Emotions

Neon, announced by Samsung with a bit of
secrecy recently, had a lot of experts speculating about what the technology
could be. At CES 2020, late on Monday, 6th January, the company unveiled what
Neon was, and it wasn’t what most had expected. The hype surrounding the
technology had built Neon up to be a next-generation AI assistant, similar to
Siri and Google Assistant. Now, however, we know that Neon is a
computationally-created AI that thinks and operates like a human being.

Not a Virtual Assistant At All

Neons are not anything like virtual
assistants. They can’t tell you the time or the weather where you’re at.
Samsung states that Neons are virtual beings, capable of emotion, and able to
learn from their experiences. These virtual beings are designed to have
conversations and behave just like regular human beings. They can be trained to
be more “human” and perform tasks that require a more
“human” touch. Samsung states that each Neon is a unique being with
its own quirks and personality.

Science Fiction Come True

Samsung has stated that they expect Neons
to learn eventually, and evolve, forming memories and behaviors based on their
interactions with other humans. The question of whether they are TOO realistic
does surface. Samsung intended that Neons become companions for people. Still,
the emotional attachment to a non-human being is something many science fiction
writers have covered in the past – some of them leading to disastrous results.

There is also the concern of “flirting
with the uncanny valley.” The term “uncanny valley” describes
the feeling of disgust that a human being gets when interacting with a
non-human entity that is almost (but not quite) human. If Neons start scaring
humans, then it might be the complete opposite of what Samsung intended. The
Neons shown at CES 2020 can form their own expressions using computer-generated
faces. Even so, these demos still lack the functionality for learning, memory,
emotions, and intelligence, which comes from a different component of the Neon
called Spectra. As of date, Spectra is still under development. It may be a
while before these almost-humans make their way off the drawing board and into
the real world.